Have you ever seen coal in real life?
I just realised that I have never seen or used it, neither crude oil of course, but there are more variants of it than this natural mineral that powers a lot of the world.
What led to you seeing or touching coal?
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Use to have an open coal fire in my childhood home. Made many a coal fire. It's very sooty on the hands!
It wasn't charcoal? That sounds wretched. Would it not release toxins into the house?
Don't think so! Defintely much heavier and more solid than bbq charcoal. I don't remember it being very smoky, weird less so than wood fires (which have a distinctive and pleasant smell) or peat fires, which were also common in my region but would trigger my asthma. But possibly it was just that I was used to coal? Maybe someone else would have found it gross?
Edit: Doing a bit of research, it seems like historically home fires would use bituminous coal, but by the time I was a child it was anthracite coal that was used. Which only releases 20% of the smoke of bituminous coal. But it's still a fossil fuel, and not charcoal.